Page 4278 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
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So, I really do not think that that concern - I can well understand why some of the shopkeepers might have it - is one that they need to be worried about. I feel that the music would be rather pleasant. Rather than have the possibility of attracting many young people to the area, I think it might tend to drive them away, if anything; it would not be of their particular flavour. I know that it has been tried in the past and the current suggestion is that perhaps three nights of the week - obviously, it would be only through the summer months - there could be light music.
Mr Petersilka has also suggested, as have a couple of other shopowners in the area, that some of the seating be changed around. There are many seats in the area, as we know. The suggestion is not to remove all the seats; that is certainly not correct. The suggestion is to relocate some 12 green wooden benches that are closer to the area of Noshes Restaurant, the pizza place and the others along that side of Garema Place, to allow for more people to sit down and not to have people on the benches right next to the people who are sitting eating their meals and so on at tables.
One other point I would like to make is to do with some of the surrounding streets in the area. There are some loading zones that do not have a time restriction on them, so to all intents they are 24-hour loading zones. I have spoken to a number of shopkeepers in the area, particularly at night-time, and I have not yet met anybody who would find a use for loading zones after hours. I believe that Mr Connolly has some useful information on that and I would be most interested to have it presented to the Assembly. He mentioned to me that there might be some use for loading zones for some of the clubs and so on, and that could well be the case. All in all, perhaps we could well place restrictions on the times that loading zones are used. The normal situation is that the restrictions finish at 6 o'clock at night, later on Friday night, and one o'clock on Saturday.
I know that a number of other members wish to speak on the matter; so, to sum up, I will just say that we all would agree, I am sure, that we would like to do whatever we can to make Garema Place a place where Canberrans and visitors to Canberra can enjoy night activities. There are not that many places around Canberra, particularly inexpensive places, where that can be done. I think it would be fairly inexpensive to help beautify the area and I think we would get very strong support from shopkeepers in the area, and indeed, from the majority of Canberrans who visit it from time to time. I commend the idea to the Assembly. Particularly, I would ask that the skateboarding problem be handled as soon as possible.
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